AlpineK

Having hiked then climbed in National Parks for over 40 years I have never felt a need to protect myself from either humans or animals by packing heat. Neither my family or friends have ever recounted events where a firearm would have helped.

There's Bivouac. You need to be a paid member to get all the features though. http://www.bivouac.com/default.asp Other than that skiing off the Duffy Lake road has potential for some good weekend tours with huts. Railroad Pass is another good area, but access this time of year may suck. Wedge Mountain towards Whistler could be good, and Mt. Currie is right above town.

I've run into black bears a few times. If it's mom with cubs then back off. If not don't try to pet it. Hiking this fall on Rainier I came within 20 feet of one we both looked at each other then went back to what we were doing. Eating berries in the case of the bear and hiking in my case. Black bears wander through campsites all the time. Lots of people sleep in tents in camp, but the only thing the bear cares about is what's in your cooler or pack. Hanging your food or using bear boxes solves this problem. Past that grizzlies aren't much of an issue in Washington. I've heard that the act of standing like we all do when we walk is considered an act of aggression to a bear, so turning around and bending over is the thing to do. I haven't heard much about cougars. I'd say just be aware of your environment. If the cougar is after you I bet it has some skills related to sneaking up behind the victim (you) that you can't match. In that case a gun ain't going to help. being a fast runner like an antelope might work, but I just don't think any of us are up to that, even without a pack.

Palmer sucks The other pictures are nice. Looks like a good day.

Here's a war worth fighting again and again [img:center]http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/Pig-War-Map.jpg[/img] Pig War

All that really matter is you describe your traverse. I traversed X. We summitted a and b. We attempted to summit c but backed off. Summit ridge traverse works as a definition for a group like the Pickets, but when there is no single ridge line like on the Ptarmigan then you have to qualify your terms.

The video is worth watching. He describes an injury I know too much about. I can relate to a lot of what he talks about. Skiing was one skill that came back naturally. [video:youtube]

You can do a traverse without summitting. When I've done them I just say I traversed this area and I submitted peak x, y, and z. If you take your idea to an extreme then you can't claim a summit of Rainier till you climb every route including Willis Wall and the Liberty Cap ice cliff.

What about a

doubtful. All your sports belong to us. [img:center]http://images.sportsline.com/images/nhl/teams/teams_map.jpg[/img] One NHL teams in BC and two in Florida

Pictures

Thermogenesis dude Actually the Emmons Glacier is a good. The Emmons involves lots of road skiing until the road to the White River Campground is open. Fuhr Finger would be another choice. This last stretch of weather could have worked for skiing, but I believe we're headed back to the typical precip cycle. Past that you're looking for a few solid days of good weather. In a lot of years May is a good month, but that's just a guess. Spend a lot of time looking at NOAA and NWAC

Up high we were skiing powder with a sun crust. The lower you got the thicker the crust got. Yeah maybe I should have said thick tree dodging. For the first bit you could link up some glades, but lower down vine maples took up a lot of space in the, "glades." Darkness didn't help either

Trip: Rock Mountain - West Face Date: 2/21/2010 Trip Report: Recently I have been going through my too-do list and knock off stuff I keep meaning to ski but then forget or blow off. Rock Mountain was on the list. I have been up to ski the south side a couple times, but never the west side. The main problem with the west side was linking up the ascent with the decent. Long ski outs along Hwy 2 are just not that inspiring. The Berdorfer description suggests starting from Smith Brook. That avoids the highway but adds miles to the trek. Jeff H and I talked about it and figured we could ski a loop starting at the east portal of the train tunnel. We figured we would go to the ridgeline and figure it out. Ascent in red descent in blue Ascent up the south facing slopes went smoothly until the ridgeline. Going off old memories, we thought we could stay on the ridgeline, but this did not look like such a good idea once we got there. In the end, we descended the ridges north side a ways to a bench and then traverse. We saw a steep chute that regained the ridge. South side of the ridge View of Rock Mountain from the ridge. Traversing took a while. We got sidetracked once when we thought we could regain the ridge early, but eventually we climbed the chute we'd been looking at. After some more travel we were on the summit Looking back at the traverse under the ridge. Glacier Peak The skiing is cool on a big wide open face that drops for a couple thousand feet. Here's the YouTube version [video:youtube] We skied to a flat section then descended and traversed till we were under a notch in Nason Ridge. After a short climb we were on the ridge crest looking down at HWY 2 as the sun was beginning to set. More skiing followed. It was more along the lines of tree dodging then nighttime tree dodging. Fortunately we had a good lay of the land, and we could hear the tunnels electric fan engines running. Eventually we were back to the road and car. Approach Notes: Climbing up from near the summer trail may be better, but if you do that either take two vehicles or only ski this when there's a good snow pack in the valley. If you ski the route make sure to check avy conditions since you'll be in avy terrain for a while.

The descent to Snow Lake is cool. I've never added in the climb and ski on Roosevelt though. I guess that's now on the to do list.

Cool

Exactly Rock climbing at crags now is a sign you need to move out of the NW.

The AAC yearly publication on accidents is a good resource. In most cases a period of time has elapsed between the actual accident and the discussion. The one thing that time gives you is the chance to get more complete/accurate information on the event. Having reliable information helps when you discuss what you think the bad decisions, failings, or bad luck contributed to the accident. Accidents suck, and when one happens involving an activity you like it isn't surprising you want to talk about it. Trying to stick to figuring out all the events involved is the best first discussion topic. After that and a little time out moving on to speculating or analysis would be just fine and maybe help prevent future climbing misfortune.

Trip: Lichtenberg Mountain - N Side Nera Lichtenwasser Lake Date: 2/15/2010 Trip Report: A few weeks back Jeff H and I were skiing towards Jove Mountain in the Smith Brook area. Neither of us had been in the area for a while. It was cloudy that day with poor visibility. After a while we bagged our plans for Jove and skied a line on the south side of Union peak back to Smith Brook. We did get some views of the north side of Lichtenberg mountain despite the clouds that day. One feature was a descent line near the outflow of Lichtenwasser Lake. We put it on the to-do list. On the 15th we headed back to ski the line. Avy conditions were a bit sketchy on Saturday and Sunday, but things started to moderate that Monday. The snow was thick and a bit icy down low, but things started to improve with altitude. Navigation was complicated since we couldn't see the whole slope. Somehow we stayed on line and got to the ridge crest in the spot we had talked about skiing from on our previous trip. Map Jeff near the top of the ridge Things at ridge line were cloudy, but it really didn't matter. The trees blocked any spectacular videos, but I did play with my camera and make this short video of the skiing. [video:youtube] As expected we skied back to the crusty snow, but the upper slopes had some nice powder. One last bit of extreme skiing brought us back to the main Smith Brook road. Fun times! Gear Notes: Using my camera for videos is all new to me. It's kind of a fun thing to do. Approach Notes: Travel on the slope isn't very obvious. We managed to pick a good line up and down. but the ascent/descent line isn't obvious.

Dude, I'm just having a bit of fun with the statement (blank) is the answer. If snowboarding is your favored method of snow travel that's cool. If you're inclined you can do a search of my skiing related TRs

Wrong on two parts: Bindings [img:center]http://www.justgetout.net/ClientFiles/5d519366-9c6e-4bf1-88da-9a5a13184e8a/Enchantments-506-0118.JPG[/img] Answers and Questions Here are some folks that didn't actually know what the question was they got the answer to. [video:youtube]

Yes, but what is the question? Non-snowboarder

but if you do that somebody might cape his ass!!! Well I know he's been to South America recently. This video may help with ID. [video:youtube]

Go to France and ask them what they think of French Canadians and how they speak. That's some quality spray.

I keep seeing this photo of some dude climbing Brass Balls (I think) solo. I wonder who that guy could be? BTW I did a search and found some Eric Mohler dude who was the assistant engineer for Sammy Hagar back in the 80s VOA